The present invention relates to a method and equipment of recycling used-automobiles, for scrapping a used-automobile to collect recyclable useful objects and subsequently pressing a body of the used-automobile.
In view of effective resource utilization, energy conservation and environmental protection, recycling of resources has been recognized as one significant subject. As to automobiles, continuous efforts has been made to establish a recycle system wherein after collecting reusable parts or the like and removing harmful or hazardous objects or materials from used or damaged automobiles, a bared body (referred to as a body iron) is pressed by a soft press machine or other press machine to form an iron scrap serving as a raw material of steel, or the body iron is crushed to fragments by a shredding machine to fractionate and collect valuable metals.
In late years, increased usage rate of automobile parts containing disadvantageous materials to steel making, such as copper, causes a difficulty in applying the pressed material formed by pressing the used-automobiles as-is after collecting recyclable parts to a raw material for steel making.
Further, in the existing circumstances, since the recycle system in automobiles involves questions of economic viability in the scrapping process itself, it has been promoted with giving weight primarily to the recycling of disassembled parts. Thus, in order to improve scrapping efficiency and parts collection rate and to reduce the scrapping process cost, there has been disclosed one technique related to a scrapping process comprising the steps of (1) carrying a used-automobile in, (2) temporarily storing, (3) preprocessing, (4) taking off parts, (5) tearing down the used-automobile, (6) pressing a body, (7) temporarily storing, and (8) carrying out, i.e a reverse process to that of assembling automobiles.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-16840 discloses a technique in which a platform having a certain height is provided with an opening serving as a transfer space for a scrapping line, a plurality of transfer carriages longitudinally movable along the scrapping line being provided as a transfer device for transferring a used-automobile between each scrapping station, each of the transfer carriages including a fork member vertically movable between higher and lower positions than the surface of the platform to serve as a table for transferring and processing the used-automobile, and a conveyer for carrying disassembled or removed parts out of the line and the like being provide on both sides in the longitudinal direction of the platform.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-230822 discloses another technique comprising transfer carriages for automatically transferring a used-automobile from an operation station to a subsequent operation station with supporting the used-automobile thereon, and a lift for carrying out the operation in each station, wherein particularly in order to collect recyclable parts, reference cards are attached on the recyclable parts in a checking/sorting station, and each scrapping operation is carried out based on the reference cards in each subsequent operation station.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 11-78810 discloses still another technique comprising an overhead crane type traveling device reciprocatable along a transfer path, and a vertically movable lift provided at lower section of the traveling device, wherein a used-automobile is supported by the lift at an optimum height for scrapping operations, and an extracting station for extracting liquid such as waste liquid or waste oil and a disassembling station for disassembling or retrieving recyclable parts are separately carried out.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 11-188535 disclosed yet another technique comprising an operation space provided between cabinets for each part, a loop type carrier provided in the operation space to support a vertically movable hanger for hanging a used-automobile and to transfer the used-automobile to a plurality of operation stations at low speed, and a carriage with stopper, for justifying the used-automobile carried in the hanger to locate at a given set position of the used-automobile and serving as an operation table for disassembling doors, front wind shield grass or the like by use of a balancer, wherein the hanger is sequentially moved to the plurality of operation stations by the loop type carrier, and each desired recyclable part is disassembled in each operation station and stored in the given part cabinet after rinsed and inspected.
Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-16841 previously filed by the applicant discloses a technique comprising a transfer device using an overhead type hoist crane for moving between scrapping stations to transfer a used-automobile with hanging the used-automobile thereon, a body rolling device provided in a functional part collecting station for disassembling or retrieving functional parts such as engine, wherein electric parts such as motors, and harnesses, instrument panels, or the like which has been regarded as non-recyclable parts are disassembled and removed from a body, whereby the content of copper and tin is lessened down to an allowable value or less to allow the scrap pressed article formed from the body iron to be available for a raw material of steel sheet having a high commercial value, and undesirable materials are reduced after shredding the body iron.
When such disassembling/removing operations are carried out in a flow system, it is necessary for used-automobiles carried in the line in sequence to be processed one by one sequentially in each scrapping station. If each scrapping station has different workload levels, undesirable holding time can arise in some scraping station, resulting in a degraded operation efficient.
In the aforementioned Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-230822, dominant recyclable parts, such as doors, bumpers, fenders and the like, are collected in other parts collecting station as a final scrapping process, while in the aforementioned Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 11-78810, the liquid extracting operation is separated from the recyclable parts disassembling operation. However, no solution of the above problem may be provided by these techniques.
Each of the aforementioned Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-16840, 11-188535 and 10-16841 intends to equalize workload in each scraping station by dividing the recyclable parts collecting operation into a plurality of scrapping stations, these technique cannot be provide a sufficient solution. Further, while the Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-16840 may increase the number of used-automobiles to be processed by providing a plurality of scrapping lines, the above problem will be remained in situ.
In the Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-16840, some discriminative marker is attached on each collected recyclable part and transferred onto the conveyer to carry it out of the scrapping line. However, it is necessary to sort the collected parts based on the marker at a terminal end of the scrapping line. In case of using box-like pallets provided on a chain conveyer to carry the collected parts out of the scrapping line sequentially, the load on the chain conveyer can be undesirably destabilized due to the variance of the stored amount or weight of the collected parts in each pallet.
Furthermore, in sophisticated equipments such as the transfer carriage having the vertically movable fork member in the Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-16840 or the loop type carrier having the vertically movable hanger in the Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 11-188535, their equipment cost is inevitably increased, and it is required to maintain and check out them by a full-time staff to assure their smooth operation, which causes questions of economic viability in disassembling/removing operations.
In view of the aforementioned problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide an effective method and equipment of disassembling/removing operations, capable of enhancing scrapping efficiency and parts collection rate with an acceptable level of lowered undesirable materials against environment as well as a lessened equipment cost, by reviewing the current recycling method of used-automobiles and applying a new flow system to carry out operations based on each segment divided into parts recycling, material recycling and thermal recycling.
In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a recycling method of used-automobiles, comprising the steps of collecting reusable parts including exterior parts from a used-automobile, collecting liquid including fuel, oil and coolant from the used-automobile, prearranging to facilitate subsequent collecting operations, collecting functional parts including glass, engine and suspension from the used-automobile, collecting non-ferrous metal parts and resin parts from the used-automobile, and pressing a body of the used-automobile which has been subjected to said steps, wherein said steps are sequentially carried out, whereby a highly efficient collection and removal of subject parts of the used-automobile is provided to achieve a high recycling rate without any shredding operation.
In another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recycling equipment having an effective arrangement of a plurality of apparatuses comprising a liquid extracting apparatus having a table vertically movable with placing a used-automobile thereon, a prearrangement apparatus having a pedestal for a body of the used-automobile, a functional parts collecting apparatus having a vertically rotatable table, a non-ferrous metal parts collecting apparatus, a pressing apparatus, and a transfer apparatus traveling between said apparatuses.
The functional parts collecting apparatus may include a glass collecting device having an openable/closeable door. The functional parts collecting apparatus may be additionally provided with functions to allow the transfer apparatus to forereach a preceding used-automobile, and to allow the body to be held in a state parallel to a operation floor in the horizontal traveling direction of the body. Further, a collected parts storing pallet may be provided close to both sides of the scrapping line, and the operation floor is arranged at the height of the collected parts storing pallet.
According to the present invention, the collecting operations of recyclable parts are adapted to carry out in parallel with the disassembling and removing operations so that a smooth operation flow may be maintained in the scrapping line. In addition, a processed used-automobile may forereach a preceding used-automobile to be transferred to next station by the transfer apparatus, which may provide efficient scrapping operations.
Further, the present invention may realize a high degree of material sorting and thereby a high level of recycle ratio may be readily achieved. Thus, direct reuse of parts, reclamation represented by iron scrap, heat application using burnable resin, oil or the like, and chemical recycling using a specific resin may be facilitated.
Furthermore, in the present invention, electric parts including harnesses is also collected and sorted. Thus, 0.2 to 0.04 mass % of Cu content and 0.01 to 0.001 3 mass % of Sn content, based on 100 mass % of total metal weight remained in the used-automobile may be achieved, and non-ferrous metal remained in the used-automobile is significantly lessened, so that the pressed article obtained by pressing the body iron may be used directly in steel furnaces as an iron scrap.
Generally, shredding operation is carried out for sorting. In the present invention, since a high degree of sorting is carried out in the disassembling and removing operations, the shredding operation may be eliminated, and the pressed article may be directly recycled for steel making. This provides a significantly simplified operation process and a reduced energy for recycling used-automobiles.
Even if the pressed article according to the present invention is shredded, since non-ferrous material parts are sufficiently removed, the shredded material may be used for steel making without any difficulty. In addition, shredder dust involved in the shredding operation, eluted amount of lead may be insignificant, which provides a desirably reduced adverse affect against environment.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the accompanying drawings and from the detailed description.